I choose today to pour my heart out. I know some people may take umbrage at what I have to say - for this, I am sorry, but if I keep my thoughts and feelings inside, I will make myself sick.
I have just attended a moving Holocaust Memorial ceremony here, where I live. There are many residents still alive, who came out of the horrors and ashes of Europe and Greece. Some never spoke about it again, others told their stories. Many souls remain lost and wondering. But one thing seems to have united us as a people - the thought of "never again".
My deep sadness is in humanity as a whole - apparently we have not learned anything from the past. The 'never again' has happened in Rwanda, in Cambodia, in China, in Sudan, in Israel, in Gaza, the West Bank. It is happening to mother earth - we have plundered, raped, pillaged, polluted, choked our mother, and her children.
The only stories that have brought me a modicum of joy in the past two weeks are those of animals : the elephants in San Diego Zoo encircling and protecting their young during the earthquake. Billy, the three and a half year old King Charles Cavalier Spaniel being returned to his owners on Kibbutz Nir Oz. He was captured on that terrible black day of October 7th 2023, and taken as a hostage to Rafah. He attached himself to the Israeli soldiers who identified him via his chip and brought him home a week ago. His little tail propelled like a helicopter as he was held by his owners who thought they had lost him, along with their home and their grandfather.
My heart screams out for those slaughtered in Gaza, but I can't say this to everyone. I am accused of not remembering what they did. Of course I remember, I won't ever forget, but how can we continue slaughtering? what do we gain? No one has been able to convince me that anything is gained. I don't think our 'leaders' Bibi and Trump are anomalies - they represent what we have become. Greedy, power hungry, blind to anyone but themselves.
Many days all I want to do is pull the covers over my head and remain there, driving out the constant sound of the planes overhead, the occasional siren, the grief, the fear, but this I cannot and must not do. As T.S. Eliot said: "Humankind cannot bear much reality," but I owe it to my ancestors and our children to carry on. I can choose to learn from the late Pope Francis, the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela - there are beacons of light in the dark, if we follow them, we too may see the light.
